Cry Havoc and … etc
Cry Havoc and …, Devoutly to be Wished and Casualties are the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth chapters of The Heroes. Chapter Summary Curnden Craw returns to his dozen in the woods north of the valley of Osrung, now crowded with Northmen. With Reachey, Golden, Ironhead, Tenways, Scale, Black Dow himself and all their men about to be launched at the southerners, this might be the most men to ever fight for The North in one battle. As they spot the advance guard of Union scouts beginning to reconnoitre the forest, Dow gives the signal. Moments later there is a deep, low blast from Reachey’s horn out to the east, as his men move on the town of Osrung. In The Union camp by the shallows, the sound of shouting from The Heroes breaks Gorst’s attention from his latest letter to the King. A few other troopers are also frowning up towards the hill. With delight, Gorst strides up to Colonel Vallimir, and tells him to ready his men for battle. Captain Lasmark and Ninth Company of the Rostod Regiment have been dispatched from The Heroes by General Jalenhorm, to bolster the defences of Osrung. However, half-way between the hill and the town, Glama Golden’s foot appear from the forest. Lasmark has barely formed lines to meet the charge, when the Northmen cavalry emerges as well. The Union men immediately start to fling down their weapons and flee. As the tide of howling Northmen hit his crumbling lines, Lasmark's skull is crushed with a mace swung by a Northman called Lightsleep. Lightsleep takes a moment to rifle through Lasmark’s corpse, finding a nice-looking ring, before joining the charge on The Heroes. By now the hill is full of Northmen. Black Dow’s Carls, and Tenways’, and Ironhead’s too. As Lightsleep climbs the hill he's struck in the chest by a flatbow-bolt from Union trooper Gaunt. Sergeant Gaunt is ordering his men to keep firing, when he’s suddenly shot through the neck by Private Rose in a flatbow accident. Rose has little time to regret his mistake, as the Northmen swarm the wall, with Agrick hacking him between the shoulders. Agrick continues charging up the hill in the throes of blood-lust and revenge for his brother, heedless of warnings to slow down. Within the circle of the standing-stones, he kills the standard-bearer of the Sixth Regiment, only to be stabbed through the back by Colonel Wetterlant. Wetterlant urges the Union men to hold the hilltop, but when Caul Shivers leaps into the circle and starts hacking men to pieces, he turns and runs himself. He springs between two of the ancient stones and jolts down the hillside, boots thrashing at the grass. His whole regiment are fleeing. Wetterlant makes it almost as far as the orchard, when Sutt Brittle, a Northman in Golden’s cavalry, rides him down putting a spear through his back. Brittle races heedlessly towards the shallows, eager to claim the reward that Golden promised to the first man across. In the river, there just a single Union man riding fearlessly at the Northmen; Bremer dan Gorst. Gorst brutally knocks Sutt Brittle from his horse, and then continues blocking, chopping, and stabbing. He losing his short steal but Vallimir’s cavalry soon joins the fray. When Gorst sees Glama Golden himself hacking at the Union men around him, he rides straight at him. The pair get into a tangle, and Gorst loses him long steal too, so he lays into Golden with his gauntleted fists. Eventually, Golden flees and when General Jalenhorm brings up his flatbowmen, the rest of the Northmen pull back from the shallows too. The battle is over, for now. Characters Locations and Terms References Category:Chapter